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The best schools and courses will not benefit the disabled trainee unless he has the right teachers and unless there is a real bond of friendship between the individual man and the vocational officer. The teachers sought are skilled men with wide experience, rather than pedagogues. Those most desired are competent men who have seen military service overseas, physically handicapped civilians, or civilians not eligible for military service. Instructors are not in uniform, but serve as civilians.

Some men are placed for training in factories, under a modified apprenticeship system. Their instruction is carefully supervised by a visiting inspector, and the progress made is recorded and checked up. This method of instruction is meeting with more and more favor in Canada, and the results have been exceedingly interesting. The men thus placed receive no wages -- unless the employer voluntarily pays them as the training progresses -- but receive from the government the same benefits as to pension and training allowance as the men re-educated in schools.

By arrangement with the various provinces, it was agreed that the Commission reserved the right to place in employment graduates of the re-educational system, while men able on return to Canada to re-enter civil life without training were to be placed by provincial commissions. There has been put into force since the beginning of 1918 a system of placement and follow-up for men completing courses under the Invalided Soldiers' Commission. Complete records show where men are employed and the wages they are earning. Some of the figures, for example, comparing wages before enlistment and after re-education show that the increase in earning power of the first hundred men graduating in Montreal -- pension payments not being taken into account -- averaged fourteen per cent.

Australia calls her work of refitting disabled soldiers for civil pursuits "repatriation." At first, as in England, private agencies assumed the burden of caring for returned fighters. Later, when Australians began to come back from the battlefields in increasing numbers, the government recognized its duty to them by passing in September, 1917, the Australian Soldiers' Repatriation Act. This act placed the control of repatriation in the hands of a commission consisting of seven members. In the capital city of each state local boards were created to act as agents in carrying out the plans of the commission.

The mere passage of the measure did not assure the carrying out of the scheme for restoring disabled men to self-support. At first, a soldier was registered at the repatriation office only when he applied there for help. Under the act, the first task of the repatriation commission, according to Senator Millen, would be to register the condition and requirements of all returning soldiers, either on the transports or before they left England. This early registration would give the commission some idea of the number of men they had to deal with, their needs, wishes, and qualifications.

For those whose disabilities prevent them from securing employment without re-educational training, the government plans to provide preliminary training in curative workshops attached to the hospitals, and then more advanced training. Such work has been launched in the hospitals at Sydney and Melbourne.

To meet the needs of the first amputation cases, Australia was forced to import artificial limbs from England, an unsatisfactory procedure at best. Later, the Surgeon General of the Defense Department established limb factories in Melbourne and Sydney. To start the first factory in Melbourne, an American expert was called in.

Under the act, a number of Local Committees were created to act as local agents for the Department of Repatriation in regard to placing of men in employment. Various labor branches were formed to carry on the routine work of the ordinary private labor agency, and to inform the department as to returned soldiers in their districts wanting work and as to vacancies requiring men to fill them. Great effort is being made by the Repatriation Department to list employers who promised to re-employ returned soldiers and to canvass the field for employers who are willing to take on disabled men.

The regulations under the Repatriation Act, effective April 8, 1918, authorize the creation in each state of a Soldiers' State Industrial Committee, for the purpose of facilitating the training of men in private industrial establishments. The former committee has power to decide disputes arising from decisions made by the latter.

A Soldiers' District Industrial Committee, consisting of a chairman appointed by the Minister, two representatives of the employers in the trade of the trainee, and two representatives of the union covering the trade or calling of the trainee, have these powers: (1) to consider opportunities for employment of soldiers or their dependents; (2) to decide after trial as to the suitability of applicants for particular callings; (3) to assess the efficiency of the trainee after the commencement of his training; (4) to re-assess the trainee's efficiency every three months; (5) periodically to review the facilities for training in workshops and technical schools; (6) to deal with disputes between persons entered for training in private workshops and the employer, in particular disputes arising as to what is the ruling rate of wages in any industry; and (7) to have power when necessary to call for and take evidence.